


Benediction

by ValiantBarnes (Cimila)



Category: Pilgrimage (2017)
Genre: M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimila/pseuds/ValiantBarnes
Summary: Sitting in bloodied sand, surrounded by corpses, Diarmuid cannot even begin to pray desperately for a miracle. What miracle could there be, when he has sent the relic to the ocean in the arms of Frère Geraldus. When he has spent so long loving another man, despite his own looming vows.Not all miracles, he discovers, are sent by God.
Relationships: Brother Diarmuid/The Mute
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Benediction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merle_p](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/gifts).



> Hello my Yuletide friend!!! I saw this one and was like *rubs little very lapse Catholic hands together*
> 
> Chose to not choose archive warnings because like... technically major character death? but that's canon and it doesn't stick. But like?? idk man. Hope you enjoy!

Diarmuid's thoughts of the future used to be abstract but reassuring. The idea of continuing to live this same life, day after month after year, filled him with contentment. The warmth of his brothers and their monastery, small though it was. The harsh land which provides for them, through the grace of God. The sturdy, comforting presence of their mute lay brother at his side. 

Such a future is lost to him, now. Diarmuid knew he was younger than the other man by at least a handful of years, if not more. Despite this, the idea of death, for either of them, was distant. On the other side of those many years spent together, a concept he barely spared a thought for, except to be glad that his lover had not died upon the ocean before they found him. 

What use would Diarmuid have for such thoughts? Tucked away, safe and protected, what fear did Diarmuid have of premature death? Of violence more serious than the play wrestling he and the mute engaged in on the beach, Diarmuid’s laughter pealing high and bright over the sands. Wrestling and caressing, reverent kisses, moments of time stolen between chores and in the darkest hours of the night. He had thought that life would continue in this way for as long as he had life left to live. Happy, euphoric, even with the sin weighting upon his eternal soul.

Brother Ciarán had once told him that there could be no true sin in a love which came from the heart.

But Brother Ciarán is as dead as his lover, tortured to death by de Merville, whose own body lay as still as the man Diarmuid now cradles. 

The shoreline is empty of all but corpses and Diarmuid himself. He wonders, absently, if this is divine punishment for the sin of his love. Whatever Brother Ciarán had said, kind eyes knowing, he had not known the whole of it. The worst of it. Perhaps it is retribution for his intent to swear himself to the Church, despite the bone deep certainty that he would continue to press his lips and body against that of another man; continue to share his bed, his passion, his heart.

Such a heart, so tender and loving, beats no more. The chest under Diarmuid’s hand is still, cold. His lover was a furnace, the heat of him enough to warm Diarmuid even on the coldest night. Thick woolen blankets tangled at their feet, for he had no need of them with the Mute pressed so tightly against him. The steam hissed off of him sometimes, when the snows came; frozen water melting too fast against skin that should have already been chilled by the wind. 

Even once this wretched journey had shown its violence, Diarmuid had not thought it would touch his lover. Not like this. The Mute had blood on his hands and his face and smeared it across Diarmuid’s skin. He was strong and fierce and cut down their pursuers with a sure competence. He should not have fallen, and died, like any other mortal man. The notion seemed preposterous, given Diarmuid’s musings on the exact nature of the man - the  _ thing _ \- he gladly welcomed between his legs.

He wishes he could go back to the monastery, erase the days between here and there as though they had never happened. Ignore Frère Geraldus, send him away with or without that cursed relic, and return to his life of quiet pleasure with his brothers and his lover. To return even a day, when the Mute had pressed him into the loam, eyes bright with battle rage and hands bloodied. It had frightened Diarmuid terribly, then. He had seen shadows and violence and something deep and dark within eyes which are usually so warm.

Had Cathal not arrived then, Diarmuid would have let his lover sate the remnants of his battle fugue in the willing clench of his body. He wishes Cathal had not gathered his wits so quickly, to search for them and the cart. He wants desperately for the comfort of the Mute’s deep kisses, the heat of him, the intimacy.

The skin of Diarmuid’s face feels tight, from the dried tears, from the sea spray and wind. He stares at the slowly encroaching tide and keeps his lover’s head cradled in his lap. He cannot stand to look at him, now. His face is as beautiful as it’s always been, even smeared with blood. It will never smile at him again and that is almost as terrible as the rest of his body. Almost. He cannot stand the sight of the wounds, the viscera that peeks from their ruined depths. 

Diarmuid keeps one hand over a chest that he has stopped begging desperately to rise. The other trails absently through thick, soft hair. This could be any other day, the pair of them on the coast near the monastery. Tucked away, out of sight, stealing a moment between chores. Or perhaps they’ve finished their work for the day. The Mute relaxes in his lap, perhaps half asleep. 

_ In a moment, _ Diarmuid lies to himself,  _ one of those calloused, gentle hands will touch me in return. He'll lay me down in the sands, or seat me in his own lap, and through him I will experience the euphoria of Christ and a world without pain. _

Fresh tears fall. Memories of better times shatter apart as he reaches for them, usurped by the horror he was forced to witness from a distance. He could not even hold his love as the last breath left him, could not offer any meagre comfort. Instead Diarmuid was trapped on a boat, fighting Frère Geraldus. He can still feel the man’s hands attempting to crush his throat, to kill him, madness in his eyes unlike anything Diarmuid has ever seen before. 

_ Holy violence, _ Frère Geraldus had said, wild and covetous, as though it were something to strive for. As though each clash of steel against steel didn’t rend Diarmuid’s very soul, agonised as he watched the distant figure of his love struggle against unwinnable odds. There is nothing holy about it, Diarmuid had known then. Or if there was, if this is what the Church aspired to, what God took as worship, then he wanted nothing to do with it.

He would take the sweet sin of a lover’s kiss over this violent virtue.

There is only Diarmuid left, now. Holy violence ended and love lost with it. He has already thought of, and discarded, returning to the monastery. He still has brothers there, still has the land. He does not delude himself that he has God’s love, not after this. Not with the Mute’s soul long fled and their holy relic forever lost to the ocean. He cannot return to the life he once held. Perhaps such simple monastic peace would be a balm to him. Diarmuid thinks it more likely that the silence, the missing brothers, will do nothing but remind him of Brother Ciarán’s tortured screams; the sight of Rua and Cathal’s bodies, forever etched into his mind.

Diarmuid will stay here, with the corpses, in the bloodied sand, until the tide takes them or Baron de Merville comes looking for his traitorous son.

The tide has overtaken the first man his lover killed, water lapping at the feet of the next. Diarmuid knows he should feel compassion for these men, lives cut short in violence, but he thinks perhaps his heart stopped when the Mute’s did. There’s nothing left inside him, now. Chest an empty cavern, waiting for the tide to wash him clean with the rest of them. He can find no regret for their deaths. For the brutal way in which his lover had rent them from this world. In a choice between their lives and that of the Mute, Diarmuid has discovered he will never hesitate.

For a brief moment, Diarmuid tricks himself into believing the heart beneath his fingers beats once more. A futile hope, for all he spent hours clinging and wailing and pleading. He feels it again, a flutter of movement through his palm. Diarmuid sighs, rubbing his thumb against the cool skin beneath his hand.

A sharp, juddering rise shakes the body he clings to. Diarmuid looks down, confused and pained by the sudden stab of hope when he knows - he  _ knows _ \- this is nothing more than a delusion born from his own longing. The Mute does not move again. His chest is unmoving, heart immobile. The moment stretches. Snaps. Breaks Diarmuid once again, the death of this sudden hope.

And then the Mute lunges upwards, great rumbling snarl in this throat, knocking Diarmuid flat on his back in the process. Diarmuid stares at the sky for a long moment, chest faintly aching from the impact, a terrible, animalistic growl rumbling through the air. He wants to look. He never wants to look. If this is false, some hallucination, if the Mute is not truly alive… 

He rolls onto his hands and knees, slowly. Heart thundering in his own chest, hope a painful weight. The growling begins to fade and Diarmuid, who had been staring at the sand still, snaps his head upwards. His eyes fix immediately upon his lover who is - upright. Breathing. Huge, heaving breaths, the sound like a benediction to Diarmuid’s withered soul.

He can think of nothing to say for a long moment, can do nothing but stare at the form of his resurrected lover. A miracle like that which the cursed rock could only ever aspire to be.  _ This, _ Diarmuid thinks for one glorious moment, _ this is the Light of our Lord. In him is life; this life is the light of mine. _

Diarmuid laughs, breathless, ecstatic. The Mute turns at the sound and Diarmuid feels his joy catch in his throat. 

The Mute’s brown eyes burn like blazing fire, taking in the sight of Diarmuid on his hands and knees without recognition. He turns around slowly, as a predator takes in prey, and Diarmuid stares once more at his chest. Beneath the dried blood are no longer open wounds but scars, pink and freshly healed. The Mute stares down at him and his lips curl into a snarl, revealing teeth made to rend and tear. Diarmuid could not claim to have known every secret of that mouth but he has spent many months thinking of it and nothing else; has spent considerably longer than that loving it. Such sharp teeth are unknown to him.

The look in the Mute’s eyes, though now backed by something undeniably Other, is not so unknown.

There are many nights when the Mute wakes, violence and fear and a wide swathe of blankness in his eyes. He’s alert to any sound, any movement. Hypervigilant. Even the soft rustle of Diarmuid quickly stirring to consciousness can have him lashing out. The Mute has tried, many times has he tried, to stop Diarmuid from claiming his rightful spot curled against him. Tried to protect him from the terrors his own mind visits upon him at night.

Diarmuid had refused to be moved or put off. He learnt, instead. Stillness and a quiet, gentle voice. Once the tension in that broad frame has eased, then Diarmuid can slowly reach a hand out, narrating his every move, and rest a hand lightly against the Mute’s own. Sometimes the Mute will hold his hand, press a gentle kiss to it, and leave the cell to wander through the night. Sometimes he will curl himself around Diarmuid, much larger frame encompassing him easily. Each time Diarmuid can see how much he appreciates not awaking to a dark, lonely cell. He has long since spent more nights in the Mute’s bed than his own. He hates the thought of his love waking, panicked and so terribly alone, no one to ground him.

It makes sense that waking from the dead would elicit the same response. The lack of recognition, muscles ready to spring, hands curled and ready for violence - this Diarmuid knows, if nothing else.

“It’s alright my love,” Diarmuid says, voice low and calm, “it’s just the two of us now.”

The Mute tenses at his voice but does not attack. Diarmuid doesn’t so much as flex his fingers in the sand, keeping perfectly still. His childhood tendency towards fidgeting has been long suppressed by hours of worship, knelt before the altar in their chapel. It serves him as well now as it did when he first pressed his lips to the Mute’s, keeping still so the sometimes skittish man did not take fright from his then innocent advance.

“There’s no one left. It’s alright. You’re alright,” Diarmuid croons, the truth of making him smile. The man he loves is upright and breathing; what else matters? The Mute stares at him, awareness slowly filtering in as Diarmuid whispers platitudes and sweet nothings into the air between them. His cheeks begin to ache with the force of his grin. 

And then his lover steps back. Steps away, despite how he looks at Diarmuid and knows him. Because of this, maybe. Diarmuid can feel his smile slip, familiar desperation starting to claw at his throat. He has always clung so tightly to his lover for fear that, one day, he would be left. Worried that if he did not have a tight grip, the Mute would slip through his fingers as water does. This illogical feeling has not been helped by witnessing the man’s death. By kissing lips slack with death, hands shaking as he tried to do the impossible and coax his lover back to life. 

Diarmuid doesn’t throw himself at the other man, doesn’t cling. Just stays on his hands and knees in the sand. His own insecurity does not matter, not now. He must be patient and calming. The Mute is overwhelmed, unsure. This entire situation must be so confusing, to have been dead one moment and alive the next. That he moves away is not a slight to Diarmuid. It is no rejection of their love, the way Diarmuid always half feared would come. Diarmuid takes an unsteady breath.

“It’s alright,” He assures again and the Mute takes another step back. Diarmuid can’t help the way his fingers sink into the sand, hands clenching. Calm, he thinks, soothing. He feels like old rope pulled too tight, watching the Mute take yet another step back. They’re not large steps, just small half stumbling things. Diarmuid wants to be close enough to tuck himself under the Mute’s arm, to help steady him. 

Diarmuid slowly, painfully slowly, moves forward. Hands sifting through stained sand, edging closer. The Mute takes a larger, a much larger, step backwards. Diarmuid freezes, staring up at his love with wide eyes, tears beginning to burn at them once more. The Mute looks down upon him and Diarmuid feels a chill run through him. He does not know how to explain the look on the Mute’s face, the expression; inhuman, perhaps. Like nothing he’s ever seen. A hint of something menacing twists on the sea breeze; dried blood and gore fresh once more, the taste of it turning to ash on his tongue. 

A warning, perhaps. From who, Diarmuid does not know or care. He would suffer much, to be close to his love.

“I know not how to explain it. We’re neither of us dead and you… you live again. A  _ miracle,” _ Diarmuid breathes though he does not think God could lay any claim to this feat. It does not matter. He would worship at the foot of whatever being has wrought this; plans to worship at the feet of this man before him. He’s already perfectly positioned, hand and knee before the towering might that is his lover. Were he only closer, he could reach out, cling to familiar legs and press his mouth right against the Mute’s groin. If that were the last sacrament Diarmuid ever took in his life, he would be satisfied.

But his love is skittish once more, as he was when Diarmuid first pursued him. He would never push the Mute for more than he was ready to give, no matter how his own heart cries for the reassurance of physical touch. That can come later, whether chaste or passionate it doesn’t matter. The reassuring touch of hand against hand or sweat slick skin against burning skin.

“My love,” Diarmuid says. For a brief moment, a familiar look alights upon the Mute’s face and Diarmuid is gratified to see it. Hungry, possessive, lustful. He has seen it many times before. His lover takes him with fiery passion and loving touch, claiming each part of Diarmuid for himself by right of conquest. Diarmuid surrenders himself, again and again, willing supplicant. 

Despite this, the Mute takes another step away. Diarmuid cannot stop the tears from overflowing, too much emotion roiling in his chest to suppress. He lowers his head, unable to stare up at this foreign, impartial god who stares at him as though carved from stone. His breathing is uneven and he struggles to calm himself.  _ Calm, _ he thinks again.  _ Soothing, _ as a small sob works its way free from his throat.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispers, “please.”

Diarmuid has never felt so pathetic in his life, not even when Frère Geraldus’s nails were scratching at his throat. The Mute has long held such power over him but never before has he used it. This is how it would feel in confession, Diarmuid imagines, had he ever spilt the entirety of his sins. The heavy weight of judgement, his own rising shame. The knowledge that he is unworthy, cleansed only by absolution that he does not think will come.

The faint crunch and sifting of sand. Diarmuid does not look up, sure that when he does he will see only the back of the man he loves. That large, dark tattoo that he has so lavished with his tongue and his mouth the last thing he will ever see of the Mute. A dark blur appears before his eyes, then another. Diarmuid blinks his tears away for a moment and they resolve into familiar shoes. He still does not look up, does not move to cling to them the way he wants to. 

A hand touches his head, fingers sliding through his hair. Diarmuid could not stop the way he arches into the touch even if he wanted to. To be touched so gently when he thought he would never know such a thing again is… heavenly. Thick fingers trail against his hairline, tap at his cheek and Diarmuid follows the unspoken instruction. He looks up, unable to stop the hope he knows shines in his eyes. There is still no warmth in the Mute’s face but the ice, at least, has thawed.

Those same fingers brush away his tears. Diarmuid somehow manages not to list into this touch or rest his head against thick thighs which have always welcomed him before. Something has changed, with the Mute’s resurrection, and Diarmuid can only hope that they have not changed so much that he is now unwanted. He does not know what to say, has no wish to pressure the Mute in any way except for how he desperately does. 

The Mute sinks into a crouch, fingers trailing their way down Diarmuid’s face to his neck as he goes. His fingers are light over Diarmuid’s bruised neck, trailing to a stop over the same place that the Mute is often drawn to. He lavishes it with kisses, his teeth always scrape against the tender flesh as though he’d like nothing more than to bite and worry and bring forth a mark that would leave no doubt as to who Diarmuid belonged to. He never did, never left any marks where they could be seen. 

Two broad hands come to cup his face, holding Diarmuid steady as the Mute leans in, noses at his hairline. Diarmuid wants to relax into those gentle hands, release all the tension which has built up, but he still feels on edge. He does not know what it is, but he knows his lover. For all that his hands are gentle, something about them is off. Something about  _ everything _ is different than it should be.

“So pure,” the voice shocks Diarmuid. He’s heard sound come from that throat before - quiet, barely there noises made low in the mute's throat as he finds completion within the tight clench of diarmud's body - but he had never thought to hear actual words. They're rough, more growl than anything a human throat should be able to produce. Diarmuid’s heart flutters at the sound.

“Even after all the ways I have defiled you,” the Mute continues, lips brushing against Diarmuid’s skin with every word. 

“I could not help it. Even aping an upright lay brother I could not resist such a temptation. How could I, when you offered yourself so freely? So eager to debase yourself.” The kiss pressed against his temple feels more mocking than anything else. Diarmuid shifts, moving his knees forward until they’re just shy of where his hands are. 

“Did you feel the taint of it, when I took you?” Diarmuid kneels in the sand now, weight no longer half on his hands. The words are biting and vicious. Diarmuid lifts his hands, settles them on the Mute’s sides. The thick muscle twitches under his touch; sand and dried blood flakes off under the gentle pressure of his fingertips.

“When you let me fuck you in the chapel, spread wide and keening with it. The desecration of sacred ground; rot festering along with my seed inside of you. You enjoyed it so much I had to gag you; my own whore of Babylon.”

The words are cruel. After the trial of the past few days, Diarmuid finds himself unsurprised that the first words his love says to him are so cruel. 

“I should force you down into the sands, take the only thing I have ever wanted from you. What will you say to the brothers when you return, stained filthy from my very touch, finally knowing the beast you’ve allowed to ruin you?” 

Diarmuid attempts to pull away and, despite the harsh words and apparent threat, the Mute allows it. His hands fall away completely, coming to rest on his knees. Diarmuid looks at him; the cruel light in his eyes, the threat visible in his entire body as he crouches in front of Diarmuid’s kneeling form. His fingertips end as though claws, now, wicked and sharp, just like his teeth. The flesh is greyed, almost blackened; inhuman. 

“I have known for a long while,” Diarmuid admits, glaring up into the Mute’s angry and hurt and resolute. The Mute stares back at him, shock stripping the beloved face of it’s mean cast. The vitriol, the cruelty, slips from his expression with every word Diarmuid speaks.

“You think I could not notice when most nights we lay curled together? When I bathe with you, when I hold you after some terror has ripped you from sleep? I could not have named you but long since have I known the man I love is inhuman.”

To be completely honest, Diarmuid had thought perhaps one of the Tuath Dé, maybe some sort of continental equivalent. Some fey creature, something which had slipped through the veil somewhere and found themself bound up in the violence of mankind, seeing what refuge he could in their peaceful monastery. It’s clear now that he is no fair folk, claws and teeth and violence writ large in him. The antithesis to everything Diarmuid has known to be good and righteous. Some demon clawed up from hell, big and menacing and blood splattered.

It changes nothing.

“Should you force me down into the sands I would take you willingly, as I would have taken you willingly when the still warm blood of the men you killed was dripping from your hands. As I took you willingly on the chapel floor and bent over the altar and underneath the very cross that Jesus died on to free me from the sin that I willingly bend the knee for, every night that I love you.”

All the ice has disappeared from the Mute’s expression. No longer is he carved from stone. Those dark eyes, though they still shine with a light that is distinctly Other, are familiar once more. 

“I love you,” Diarmuid’s voice holds steady, for all he’s terrified that this still will not be enough. That the Mute will turn from him, leave him alone and heartbroken in the sand.

“No matter what you are or from whence you came, I choose-”

“Don’t,” the Mute cuts him off, one hand rising to touch his shoulder briefly before it falls back. Diarmuid digs his fingers into the thick muscle under his hands. “Do not forsake your God for me.”

“I love you. Do not try and drive me away, I could not bear it.” Diarmuid begs, angry and terrified. The Mute’s eyes crease into familiar lines, soft at the corners. He looks so terribly wretched, apology in every line of his face. Exhaustion, too. 

“I’m sorry,” the Mute says, raising his hands once more but he pauses before he actual touches Diarmuid’s face. Diarmuid leans forward, pressing the clawed hands against his skin. He cares not if they cut him, the loving touch worth any sting of pain, but the Mute is as careful with him as he’s always been. Fingers curve around his jaw, thumbs brushing against his cheeks. 

“You can’t stay with me. They’ll tear you to shreds just to taunt me, if we’re found. I want you to be safe. You should not forsake your God and the softness of a bless’d afterlife, not for me.”

Diarmuid could say many things in answer to this. He could speak of the relic he threw away, a miracle lost to the Church and its followers forever. His own wavering faith in the face of Frère Geraldus’s fanaticism. How if God were to forsake him for loving this demon, surely such a decision was made the first time Diarmuid had known the Mute was not human and ignored it. The first time he slid into the Mute’s bed, trembling with anticipation, not quite knowing how these next steps go between men but knowing there was something more than rutting against each other and  _ wanting _ it with a desperate ache that no amount of confession or repentance or praying could strip from him.

“Tell me you do not want me, that you do not love me, and I will go,” Diarmuid says instead. It’s the only thing that matters, after all. If the Mute truly does not want his company, his love, then Diarmuid will let him. The Mute’s expression cracks open, anguished, and he leans in to press his forehead to Diarmuid’s.

“I cannot lie,” the Mute says, “not like your bible says. We twist the truth, use it to hurt and wound all the worse for it, but the corruption that burns within us does not allow for lies.”

“You love me,” Diarmud says, sure of it. 

“I love you more than I have ever loved before. Even before I was cursed and knew only God's light, I did not love him to the extent that I love you. It burns,” he whispers into the space between them, “and I know peace only when your eyes are on me, when you think of me and smile.”

“Then you must burn always,” Diarmuid says, tilting his head enough that his lips scrape against the Mute’s with every word. They breathe the same air for a few moments, tender and intimate, before they surge towards each other. The kiss starts deep and filthy and Diarmuid leans into it willingly, clutching his lover tight. It seems like no time at all before his back hits the sand once more, the familiar body covering him completely. The sweet ache he knows will come, legs stretched too wide around a thick waist.

Before that, the Mute scrapes his teeth down the tender bruises on Diarmuid neck and growls, guttural and inhuman.

“Who?” He asks, snarls like something feral when Diarmuid tells him about how Frère Geraldus attacked him. 

“He has gone to no heaven,” the Mute assures, “none of them have. Do you think such violence is the product of any God who deserves your worship?”

Diarmuid has no answer. It seems the things that God can be change, depending on who tells it and what suits them best. The God he knew in the monastery was kind, paternal, Ciarán’s encouraging smile and honest work. The God he has found here is cruel and harsh, a being of holy vengeance and violence, fanaticism and blood spilled in His name.

He kisses the Mute again, writhes against the hardness pressing against his most intimate places, desperately does not want to think of anything but the ways he can worship the body of his lover. He would choose the Mute over any version of God, even over the familial love of the monastery. His benedictions have always been answered by the man above him, the Mute always ready and willing to give him anything. Everything. 

It hurts, fast and rough on a beach surrounded by death, but Diarmuid refuses to wait. He wants to feel it, more than he felt the hands around his neck, the bone deep grief or the heartbreak. 

After, laying on the Mute’s chest, his lover not yet withdrawn from him though they are both spent and lax in the sand, the Mute says,

“They will come for me, now that I’ve spoken. Already they seek the sound of my voice.”

“Why?” 

“We are, most of us, bathing in the blood shed by the crusades. I… left. I knew they could chase me to the ends of the Earth and beyond, should I flee. Still I could do no different. Some things are too much, even for those who have already Fallen.”

Diarmuid cannot even imagine the horrors the Mute must have seen in the Holy Lands. The past days have been enough and he knows that what has transpired is nothing in comparison. That horrific device that de Merville had, which he had plunged into Ciarán, was a product of such a place. Perhaps it’s the sort of place that either breaks men or twists them, with nothing in between. 

“Will you have to vow silence again, so that they cannot find you?” The Mute laughs, a quiet rumble that Diarmuid can feel in his own chest.

“Partially. So long as I live, they can feel the threads of my presence through the echoes of my voice still left in this plane. I will have to die once more, on open water, to be free of them.” Diarmuid understands, suddenly, that this was how he came to the monastery.

“I do not want to watch you die again,” Diarmuid admits, clinging to his lover, pressing frantic kisses across his shoulders. The older man runs a soothing hand down Diarmuid’s spine before pulling him closer, somehow.

“I will live again,” he promises, “and then we will be safe.”

Diarmuid sinks his teeth into the wide shoulder underneath him, hard enough that the bruise begins to spread almost instantly. He can feel his lover harden against him, hands sliding against his skin turning hungry and possessive once more. Diarmuid doesn’t know how much time they have before they must flee, over open water; how much time until he must watch the Mute die once more. He’s going to make the most of it before the Mute urges him to his feet once more.


End file.
